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HELP, Did I hurt my AC by going on and off

Ok I have a Carrier AC unit that is about 3 yrs old. My new Rheem furnace has a LuxPro stat. When the stat is in the "cool" mode and the ac goes off I notice that it takes about 5 minutes to restart, not sure if it does this all the time??

Now by accident the first time and to check if it really happened the 2nd time I shut the switch from cool to off but then turned it right back to cool and bumped the temp down and the ac came on.

I then remembered it is not supposed to do this so I shut it off. Then like an idiot I tried it again to see IF that was what happened and it was.

So...did I hurt anything by doing this twice ??? I know I shouldnt do this right ??

I assume that the delay is built in the stat and when we shut the switch to off it reset the stat because when you stay in the cool mode and it goes of and you bump the temp down it will wait the 5 minutes to come back on

The 5 minute delay is the compressor protection on the stat. Even then there is sometimes a compressor protection circuit in the outdoor unit. Safe to say a couple times will not hurt your outdoor unit anyway. What can hurt it is when it happens like 20 times and the compressor is going on and off like crazy. Then you can ruin your windings in your compressor so you are fine.

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Originally Posted by crzymtrbiker

The 5 minute delay is the compressor protection on the stat. Even then there is sometimes a compressor protection circuit in the outdoor unit. Safe to say a couple times will not hurt your outdoor unit anyway. What can hurt it is when it happens like 20 times and the compressor is going on and off like crazy. Then you can ruin your windings in your compressor so you are fine.

I seen a Goodman outdoor unit with a Lux stat cycling like 5 times every minute, then it would run about 10 minutes and cycle another 5 times in a minute. The customer said it had been doing it for about 3 weeks before she decided to call and have it checked. When it was cycling on and off you could hear the stat clicking, so after changing the stat and the contactor the system ran fine. I could hardly believe the compressor had taken that beating for that length of time and continued to run...at least for now.